


A Fine Balance

by darkironprincess17



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, F/M, Gen, Gender Issues, Humor, Murder Mystery, Mystery, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-11-01 03:42:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10913601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkironprincess17/pseuds/darkironprincess17
Summary: "A Reaper's duty is a fine balance. So long as Heaven and Hell remain in balance, so do we. But that has changed. We have been forced to request outside help as new presences have started endangering not only the efficiency of our jobs, but our existence as well." Join the Administrative Department's head mechanic and the star Dispatch Reapers in their struggle to find peace, balance, and themselves while they're at it. Story takes place about 15 years before Canon storyline. Eventual WilliamxOC. Mild violence, swearing. Even chapters are an art piece, odd chapters are storywork.





	1. CHAPTER ONE: A Murder Most Odd

**CHAPTER ONE : A Murder Most Odd**

The air is stale. A fog hangs over the city of London like a burial shroud. The reaper stops at the body, kicking it over with a shoe. It's a rather suspicious death, he thinks as he examines the body of the young woman. Agnes Caulburn, wife of the librarian Martin Caulburn, aged twenty seven, died on March 25th, 1878 at 5pm, cause of death... unknown.

  
He frowns, looking at the question mark on his to-die list. How could the cause of death be unknown? 

The woman's dress is dishevelled, huge slashes crossing over her entire torso and through her hat, as though she was mauled by a bear...but she is not bleeding. Her clothing is torn, but the skin underneath is unbroken. And the body is in a swamp, not in a forest. As far as the reaper is concerned, bears do not dwell in swamps. Unless he's gone mad. Which could be possible, if he's entirely honest.

Her stare is blank, her eyes open but not seeing. If anything that baffles the reaper, it is the look of utmost horror that has been frozen on her face with her death. He equips his death scythe, a grafting knife, and stabs it into her heart, hoping to get a better look at how she died from her cinematic record.

There's nothing.

There is no cinematic record. She doesn't have one. He tries it again, but once again the knife simply digs in, and no cinematic record shows. He scans her body with a spell made to trace demonic contracts, but it finds nothing. Agnes Caulburn was simply a normal human being...with a very abnormal death. 

An ear piercing howl makes the reaper lift his attention from the body, grafting knife clutched in his hand. He doesn't hesitate as a growling noise comes from inside the swamp. Out of the same pocket dimension as his death scythe, he takes a radio communicator with the design of two crossed axes on the cover. No earthly creature would see a reaper and not immediately run away from them in panic.

"Luther to homeworld. I repeat, do you read me, Luther to homeworld reporting, to any department that can hear me. Full name, Luther Siegel, dispatch number 2519. I need backup. Now." 

There is a few seconds before the signal picks up.

"Administrative department to Luther Siegel, your request has been processed. We are sending two dispatch members into your field- please disclose your location." 

A shadow darts from the bushes behind him.

"The Brathburn swamps, an hour's travel west of London, death site of Agnes Caulburn. It is not a request, it is a necessity. We're dealing with something of demonic origin."

"The dispatch will occur shortly, please hold your ground until security-"

The communicator is knocked out of his hand, the connection going silent.

 

\---

 

"And that's what happened! My poor heart, I almost fainted! To think a reaper could be confronted with the possibility of death!!"

"You're sure about this?"

"Sweetie I don't lie about this sort of thing" Grell drapes herself across my office desk, gently pushing the papers I had been working on all day out of the way with a long red-painted nail, propping her chin up with her elbow. We'd been having our daily office chat on my break. "What would I have to gain out of doing so?"

"You're always in the mood for a story." I grumble, fishing the papers she'd slid into my garbage bin out of it, and sticking it neatly in a folder. "Is Luther going to recover?" 

She shrugs. "Beats me, darling. I wasn't that fond of him anyway."

"Grell!" 

"Alright Alright I know how much he means to you, I overheard the wimpy lookin' gal at the front desk saying he should pull through fine, not that I cared but I'm sharing this tidbit just for you so you don't worry that pretty little head of yours." 

"Do they know for sure what happened to him?"

"No, and that's the mystery of it." She peers over her glasses at me with a grin. "That's why they're sending us Dispatch Reapers out in pairs until this case is closed, it's too dangerous to go out alone anymore~" 

"And let me guess. You're hoping to be stuck with William, aren't you."

"YES!" She very nearly rolls off the desk. I sigh. Of course she ignores the reality of the situation. Sometimes I feel as though I know Grell better than she knows herself - sure we're safe here in our little alternate plane of being, but she's gonna start missing her freedom to explore the world of the living to her contentment shortly enough without being tied to another reaper all the time. 

It's a situation that is interesting enough to say the least. Over the course of the past few days, several bodies in a similar state to that of Agnes Caulburn were found scattered over Southern England. Not concentrated in any way, and no sign of demonic contract, but evidently not a natural cause of death, and all of the bodies were missing their cinematic records.

Usually we'd rather not get involved, but it's gotten to the point where whatever this is that's killing these humans is making it impossible for us reapers to do our jobs. Which is bad for us because if we can't do our jobs, we're the ones suffering. Not to mention the damage whatever that thing was did to Luther...

I don't even want to think about it. Of course, all reapers have our own defenses, and if fully unleashed, we could even make quick work of an angel. All in the name of duty of course, as there are severe penalties in using these defenses if they are uncalled for- and you have to get explicit permission to use them _beforehand_ \- which is imaginably extremely difficult in the heat of the moment. Whatever this thing was must've really taken Luther by surprise.

I should go see him once he's conscious again. Luther and I did our training together, we were final exam partners, though we eventually parted ways career-wise once we were admitted into the soul-reaping system. Luther went into Dispatch, specifically retrieval, and I went into Administration to become the head-honcho mechanic of the entire department.

I guess my official fancy-pants title is "Manager of the Mechanics division of the Administrative Department", but I guess all I really am is just a mechanic who does an awful lot of paperwork and yells at some people on occasion. If you need anything about your death scythe done, I'm your go-to. I do everything, from the tiny default axe scythes that everyone receives, to their customization upon promotion, confiscation upon demotion, and just about anything and everything you can imagine. 

I'm the reason that death scythes can cut through anything, I have sole permission from the higher-ups to use the spell to make them as such. I make them from scratch, and if you can think of the weirdest possible thing you can to make into a death scythe, I've probably done it. Grell's chainsaw is actually my handiwork. If you look closely, my initials are engraved into the underside of the handle. L.B. Leah Barrett. 

Thanks to this garbage going on in the world of the living though, my life is about to get a lot more complicated than throwing papers, cobbling together death scythes for newbies and making my trainees nervous.

The pieces of paper I had been filing before Grell had barged in were from the forensics unit, lining up potential murder culprits, and it's now up to me to decide what to equip the retrieval unit with in order to give them a better hand in fending against whatever these creatures may be... but I'm having a very hard time deciding what kind of upgrade to give their scythes... and that's impossible to do without knowing what we're up against.

"This is harder than I thought it would be..." It's my turn to glance over the edges of my glasses at Grell, who's been freaking out happily on the floor at the idea of being partnered with William for the past thirty seconds or so that I've zoned out. "Grell, what do you think about me temporarily joining the dispatch department?"

"Ooooh, scared of letting me go alone?" she bats her eyelashes. "I knew you loved me, Lee-lee~"

"Yeah yeah, I do, but sometimes I'd love to kick your ass more." I grumble. "I just don't know what kind of upgrade to give your unit, and I'd do much better at solving this damn problem if I could see first hand what we're up against. I haven't left homeworld since I became a reaper."

"It's stellar down there~! I have so much to show you, the Tower of Pisa, the French skyline, the rivers of India at sunset, oohh it's wonderful!" 

"Grell, this is for a mission. Remember we aren't allowed to do any funny business until this whole mess is all done and sorted. I also don't exactly want to leave homeworld..."

She pouts. "Aw." 

"Which is why you should back me up on this, it's for your own good too. I will discuss this with the dispatch manager tomorrow, in any case I don't want Luther back on duty until I've made the necessary adjustments. I'm gonna take his place in dispatch until he comes back."

 


	2. Art as promised

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick doodle I threw together last night of our lovely narrator, Leah Barrett. Leah is 5'5'', 5'7'' in those heels she wears. Ethnicity-wise, Leah had a British father, and a Pakistani Punjabi mother, when she was still alive as a human. Leah primarily dresses in shades of blue and grey, for no particular reason beyond the fact that most people in the Administrative department wear blue. Reaper dress code is suits for everyone, but some people -mostly women- opt for bows instead of ties.  
> Leah's eyesight is not that bad for a Reaper without her glasses, but she would need them to read anything further than four or five feet away.  
> In-story headcanon: Grell has the best eyesight of any reaper sans-glasses [though it's still pretty bad as it is]

 


	3. Clash of Managers

"Allow me to reiterate...you wish to transfer departments and undergo a temporary demotion from your current stature, all in the name of figuring out what the retrieval reapers are dealing with...because you cannot figure out the culprit in any other way?" 

I hate this man's tone of voice.

"Yes. what about that wasn't clear, exactly?"

"Nothing is unclear, Miss Barrett, I'm simply astonished that someone of your stature can find no other measure to complete your task."

Wow, for someone who's simply astonished, he sure sounds deadpan to me. How I'd love to take a chair to his face. 

I'm sitting in the office of the retrieval unit manager, attempting to reason somewhat with him through my decision, after two days of attempting to schedule a meeting with him, which could not have been bypassed in my proposal in any way shape or form. And after everything I went through, he's not budging. Stubborn asshole. 

"I'd like to remind you that solving this problem does not fall in the line of _my_ duty. However, it falls within the line of _yours_. If we're going by finding measures to complete tasks, I have found one over you, since you, Mr. Spears, haven't found anything in what concerns your own department."

"The duty was transferred to you as I have too much work to do to dedicate extra time to this." He says flatly. "I have been working overtime every single day this week and have more immediate matters to address. Not because I am incapable of finding a solution."

"Well, I've found you an approach to a solution. It's not a complicated procedure."

He glares up at me from his typewriter. 

"And how would you happen to know that? Your ludicrous idea has never been done before, it will require an entire precedent to be written, which is more work for me than the benefit I think you will provide to my team."

"Desperate times call for desperate measures. You have an open position in your retrieval unit, a unit that is already nearly permanently understaffed, and someone qualified who is more than willing to join you." 

"Qualified? You must be joking. You have no dispatch training experience. You have never left homeworld - you aren't even aware of what the Earth looks like now. Your scythes are not customized."

"I can customize my own scythe. As a manager our primary role is adaptability, no? And as for the Earth, I'm sure England has not flipped itself upside down in the decade or so since I've been dead." 

I'm pretty proud of myself for beating back his every complaint but mr. Spear-up-his-ass here still isn't budging. He's dead set on not letting me into his department and I can see that. What does he even have against me anyway? 

"And who will run your workshop while you are traipsing around my unit? You cannot simply shirk your given responsibilities."

"My assistant manager will do. I trust Stephen to be capable enough. Should there be a situation that only I can resolve, I will return momentarily and split my time between two places."

The man behind the desk is silent for a moment. His eyes don't have a single shred of warmth in them, and as I look into them for a moment I begin to highly reconsider my decision. I suppose if I didn't despise this guy as much as I do, perhaps I would find his eyes beautiful. They have a sharp almond shape to them, and curve in a similar way such that it reminds me of a bird. But his eyes are not kind. They're empty. Even Grell has somehow managed to show more compassion with her highly conditional infatuation. 

"You will have Stephen Rothwell run a capability test before you tell me something of that nature." He pushes his glasses up with one hand from where they'd slid down. "You will then undergo the same managerial dispatch level training that I did. I will not let you into my department until I see you complete the training and pass the exam with a high degree of effectiveness. Those are my terms." 

Ugh. On the bright side, it's better than what I had. I stand from my chair, pushing a strand of hair out of my face.

"Fine. I will discuss your terms with the higher-ups, so they may prepare the test for me."

"No, no, Miss Barrett, _I_ will be preparing your test for you. It is up to my discretion who to admit into my department."

Well shit.

"We will begin tomorrow, and I expect you at the training arena at 9am sharp, customized scythe in hand."

He hands me a business card, being very careful not to let the tips of his fingers touch mine. I snatch it out of his hands, hoping it gave the bastard a paper cut. 

"Oh, and Miss Barrett..." He calls after me as I turn to leave. I pause, but do not turn back to him. 

"Do keep in mind that with this little scheme of yours, you are filling Luther Siegel's position, meaning that you are being temporarily demoted. As of tomorrow you become under my jurisdiction until you return to the Administrative division, and you will follow what it is I tell you to do without question. I don't know how your insolent attitude got you far enough to attain the level of a manager, but it will not be tolerated here." 

I don't answer him, I'm out the door before he even finishes his last word, smirking a little to myself at my petty win, but also boiling with rage. 

I don't know what Grell sees in the man, I really don't. Though Grell loves to form extremely unhealthy attachments to people who are not good for her in any way shape or form, or to those who are just not interested, and it looks like this William guy is probably both. I've only seen him a few times and this was the first time I'd ever spoken to him one on one - a situation I now regret getting into. I've hated him since I first set eyes on him though, he doesn't know how to sit in a meeting room without looking like he's got better stuff to do, as if he's got better stuff to do. 

I head in the direction of my workshop, still seething, having half a mind to just throw the business card in the garbage. Because he expects me to have my scythe customized by some miracle in half a day, I'll have to stay late tonight to get it done, and this is not going to be paid overtime.  
What do I even want my scythe to be? I never upgraded it from the default mini scythes because I never had a reason to. I guess he has a point though, I'm going to need a much more functional weapon than those things in order to be a retrieval reaper. 

This situation kind of sucks, but the more I think about it the more I'm convinced I'm doing the right thing. I owe enough to Luther that it's the least I could do for him to give him a helping hand once he's better, and call it over-emotional attachment if you want, but it's also more than that. As much as perhaps Mr. Spineless wants to believe, I do have a need to perform my duty, otherwise I wouldn't be here.

Grell is going to be angry with me for being home late. Not that we live together, but she can get unreasonably controlling at times... Once I get into my office, I make it a priority to call her right away, as much as I've been trying to teach her out of sticking her nose in literally everything I do. I pick up my phone and spin the dial around until I reach Grell's home phone. 

"Hello~?" She picks up on the third ring, as flamboyant as ever.

"Grell, it's me. I'm gonna have to stay at the workshop late tonight. I have some unreasonable expectations to live up to."

If that last sentence right there isn't an accurate description of life as a Reaper, I don't know what is.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N A drawing of the previous chapter, clash of managers. Leah and William really don't like each other, but his side is also equally justified if going by example. Currently debating doing a few chapters from William's perspective as well later on. For now, enjoy this art until chapter 3 is up.

 

 


	5. Chapter 3: Unreasonable Expectations

Chapter 3: Unreasonable Expectations

I swear to God I'm gonna murder someone. 

I'm starting to remember less and less why I decided that this was a good idea. This is suicide. Someone should fire this guy. I'm gonna fire this guy. Like take a tank of gasoline from one of my motorcycles and light up his house in the middle of the night kind of fire.   
I have been up since five in the morning, attempting to figure out my new death scythe. I made something very simple last night, not having wanted to get caught up longer than I had to rather than actually consider the weapon I truly wanted. I figured that if I really hated it, I could change it to my liking after this mess was over and done with, this was my field after all.

So I made a spear. I have no bloody idea how to use a spear. 

Not only is this gonna make me look like a giant dumbass in the eyes of William Sneers, but if anyone came in to supervise our training, I'd make myself look like a dumbass to my supervisors too. And I have no excuse for this, this is my field after all. Forget my new asshole teacher being surprised at how I got to manager level, sometimes I'm surprised myself at how I got to manager level. 

If Senior Snootface over here is always predisposed to making ridiculous requests at the drop of a hat with unreasonable expectations, I have no idea how Luther survived this long as his assistant manager. 

But Luther has the patience and composure of a saint. I, unfortunately, do not. 

A spear is a weapon made to fight not quite at close combat, which is far more my forte than range fighting, but it's not quite long distance enough to be considered a range weapon. And it's this weird in-between that's probably gonna be the hole in my canoe, I can just sense it. 

I've always admired reapers who use pole-arm weapons. The graceful spinning is not only a fantastic distraction technique, it's quick, efficient, deadly, and also doesn't allow anyone to get near you with anything but a projectile. And you can't really make a gun into a death scythe- you'd have to make the bullets the death scythe which would make the gun casing shatter every time it was fired, and you'd have to go about digging the bullet back out of whatever you hit.... I'm rambling. Why did I leave my job again?

 _Do it for Luther. Pull yourself together, Leah. If not for yourself, do it for him._

Anyhow, I've been trying to perfect the same spinning sort of technique for the past five hours, and I've managed to give myself a blooming bruise on my left temple. Bottom line, I still have no idea how to not embarrass myself. I'm already in the training arena, having decided that three hours too early is much better than being a minute late, I can't leave even a second of something unconsidered, I don't want to give him any ammunition to pick at me with. 

The sand is nice for a bit of traction and potentially coverage, and I've scoped out the training arena to the best of my ability, hoping to use my environment a bit to my advantage. It also doesn't help that I have no idea what sort of training or tests this snotwad is about to pull on me. 

The clock strikes nine, and right on cue, my least favourite person in the world walks in. I do not acknowledge him anyway, simply standing to face him.

"First error of the day, miss Barrett, you will not get out your scythe until I have stated that you do so." He adjusts his glasses, even though they look like they fit him perfectly fine. "Though the retrieval unit is a fighting unit, having your scythe exposed at all times is against protocol, which I take that you have read through carefully."

He must be joking. What protocol? He only told me to have my death scythe yesterday. He drops a binder and a stack of notes on a nearby crate, turning only to glare at me when I have not moved.

"If I was not clear, allow me to make myself painfully so. Put your death scythe away. That is an order." 

"Yes, sir." As quickly as my death scythe was in my hands, it is gone. He doesn't seem impressed by how quickly I have mastered my little pocket dimension, though I suppose all reapers use theirs all the time for books, first aid kits, purses, even makeup. Training it to accomodate something as large as a spear, however, was a little bit of work, and of course I get no commendation on my success. 

"Good." 

He walks over to me, maintaining at least two good paces further away from me than two normal people would be when having a conversation. 

"Your training will consist of three parts, the same as your initial training, and your test will be on the same three parts; Practical, Written, and Ethics. We will begin with some ethics and reflex work today."

Mr. Scoffs moves over to the end of the room, lighting up a projector in the corner which projects an image of a series of houses.

"I will give you a scenario, miss Barrett, and you will tell me how you should react in your position as a retrieval reaper. Your first scenario is as follows. This woman here is about to be hit by a carriage." The video plays as he speaks, displaying the streets of London on the furthest arena wall, depicting a mousey haired woman suddenly running onto the street after a child.   
"Keep the following in mind, that all reapers are invisible to human beings unless the human in particular has seen the process of a soul being reaped. You are on Earth to reap the soul of another human who is not this woman. She is not on the to-die list, and she is very evidently about to get hit. What do you do?"

I frown. "I would pull her out of the way, of course. If she's not meant to die then she ought not to get hit, no?"

"Incorrect. If she is not on the to-die list, it means that she will survive the crash and it must follow as necessary. The most important part of the code of conduct, miss Barrett, is to not meddle in the affairs of human beings. If she is not altering fate, then you must leave her be."

The video continues, displaying the full crash, but miraculously, the woman lives. 

"Say, however, that you had in fact pulled her out of the way. Consider circumstances." He rewinds the video. "She was in a crowded market, but when she ran out of the street, there was no possible way for her to have dodged. If you had pulled her out of the way, it would be very visible and rather questionable to all the surrounding humans how she suddenly was able to move. Perhaps it would lead to people believing she is haunted. Perhaps this would lead to the woman being ostracized and committing suicide. Certainly we do not need more reapers among our ranks."

I sigh. Of course. How was he expecting me to know any of this? I thought it the right thing to do.

"Situation analysis, is everything in our field, miss Barrett. Of course, I would not expect a mere mechanic to understand. Your work is always static, every little gear going into the same place every time. Our work, however, is ever-changing. Next scenario..."

This goes on for a good two hours before we switch to retrieval ethics, and then to physical reflex tests. 

I wish I could say our interactions got more pleasant as the time went on, but in fact he became even more scathing, and I became ever more irritated, to the point that when it came time for the reflex-reaction training, it took every ounce of composure I possessed- which is minimal to begin with-to not take the spongey projectiles he was tossing to test my reflexes and hit them right back. 

It did not help one bit that most of them ended up hitting me, and every time they did, he'd end up with a little contemptuous smirk on his face. I worked 9-5 with him today, with absolutely no break time alotted, unless you consider my zoning off into space while he was droning on about reaper code a break.   
It felt like forever until he finally shut off the projector, and removed the projectile cannons from their posts.

"That will be all, Miss Barrett. I expect you back here this time next week for your next training session." 

As I finally leave the training arena after his curt dismissal, it hits me that he knew I must have next to no idea how to fight. I've worked as a mechanic my whole life, I've never laid my hands on anything more powerful than my two shitty little default axes. Not only that, but he'd told me to make my death scythe in one night, whereas the usual waiting period to receive a full customization is 7-10 business days. 

I leave in a worse mood than ever before. Luther damn well better appreciate what I'm doing for him when he wakes up. He's gonna have an earful from me about his idiotic manager.


End file.
